(Almost) Free Pantry Storage

I love those beautiful pictures of color coordinated pantries as much as the next gal (or guy!) but I have yet to figure out how those are functional, at least functional in the way I need my pantry to be. I mean, where's the peanut butter? Where's the vinegar??

Here's mine (and in the spirit of keeping it real, I didn't even face the peanut butter forward):

Anyway, a very unfortunate event precipitated our recent overhaul of the pantry. In the middle of making dinner, as I dug around for the bag of pine nuts, I discovered, to my HORROR, some dead little buggies. 

Ahhhh!!! I don't know about you, but whenever I've discovered an infestation in my family's food supply (it's only happened once before), I get so grossed out and panicky in an almost-screaming, almost-jumping up and down with arms flapping, almost crying kind of way. No joke. 

You know these infestations haven't happened because I'm some sort of slob or anything, right? =( I've done a little research and much of the time, people bring critters home in packages from the store. And if you keep things around for too long, they hatch and multiply and invade other pantry items. SICK! They chew through cardboard and soft plastic. I know because I saw the holes. 

So I set out to do my best to make sure this doesn't happen again. 

To start, I invested in some of these gorgeous (Is that too strong of a word? Maybe...) Oxo containers with credit I had at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They are thick, safe plastic, easy-to-use, durable, and, as always with Oxo products, easy on the eye. 

But to store beans, barley, popcorn, cornmeal, and other less frequently used small items, I turned to all the pristine jars I had saved after getting all the gunk off of them. Remember the DIY Goo-Be-Gone? 

Because all the mismatched, not easy on the eye jar lids bothered me in the pantry, I decided to finally spray paint them, as I'd been meaning to for who knows how long. 

I love how they turned out, in both form and function. And all I had to pay for was the paint (which was actually left over from another project). 

Quick tips for making your own pantry storage:

• Save several glass jars from food items you buy. The more variety the better. 

• Clean the paper and sticky residue off of them as you save them so you don't have too many to do at once.

• Once you have a good number saved, collect their lids and spray paint them. Use Rustoleum, which adheres to metal. So far, it's doing a good job staying on, even when we wash the lids (which isn't very often since we store mostly long-lasting grains and legumes in the glass jars).